Wrenched & Ridden bike reviews: fi’zi:k Cyrano Seatpost

Published February 22, 2010 10:49PM

With the explosive popularity of extended seat tubes and integrated seat masts on new bikes these days, it’s not hard to make a case for the eventual obsolescence of the traditional 250 x 27.2mm road bike seatpost. It’s a component that we’ve known and loved for years, one that fits the majority of traditional road bikes, and one that’s seen multiple iterations. For the most part it’s functioned just fine. But in the quest for lighter and stiffer (or maybe just newer and feature-laden) bikes, a new school of small and intricate seat caps and clamps that crown extended seat masts is looking to extinguish standard seatposts.

Even so, fi’zi:k hasn’t shied from trying to improve upon the traditional seatpost with its new Cyrano. It’s an effort undertaken by many component makers in the past, in their own attempt to make lighter, stronger, or more functional parts. Fi’zi:k hasn’t fully reinvented the wheel (or the post, as it were), but they’ve certainly added some user-friendly features and compatibilities. Most notably, the Cyrano post accommodates increasingly common carbon railed saddles.

Cyrano isn’t revolutionary, but it’s a nice evolution and refinement of the best traits in a seatpost. It’s a great choice and highly functional if your bike still demands a traditional seatpost, and even better, Cyrano is available in 270-, 330- and 400mm, and diameters 27.2, 30.9, 31.6, and 34.9mm to fit almost any bike with a hollow seat tube.

Two features set the 3D forged and machined aluminum Cyrano seatpost apart. One is the seat rail clamp itself, which is designed to accommodate any seat rail cross section from the standard 7mm alloy or titanium up to 10.3mm braided carbon fiber. It’s a handy versatility, given the growing number of saddles available with oversized carbon rails. Other posts like the Ritchey WCS and Bontrager Race X-Lite offer interchangeable side plates with deeper rail clamps, but fi’zi:k is one of the few that don’t require accessory parts to accommodate tall carbon rails.

The other characteristic feature is the two-bolt saddle clamp, in which a tilt adjusting front thumbscrew helps set the saddle angle (I’m sure I’ve seen this style of tilt adjustment before, but I can’t recall where. Was it Titec, 10 years ago?). After adjusting tilt with the front thumbscrew, a rear bolt must be tightened to secure the clamp. The nature of the front and rear bolts working in opposition creates a very secure clamp, compared with single bolt, cylindrical clamps, which seem to be more prone to slippage if not fully tightened.

The clamp itself has a long, 45.5mm lower cradle to offer lots of support on the underside of the rails. On the other

Other design details are smart, too. The shaft wall thickness is thicker front to back for strength, and thinner on the sides to shave weight. The lowermost portion of the shaft is further bored out and angle cut for weight savings. The upper clamp has a very low profile, to ease saddle installation and minimize interference with the underside of the saddle.

All told, the Cyrano is pretty clever in the range and ease of adjustability, and in the amount of saddle rail support. The design delivers as promised, and installing a fi’zi:k Antares 00 saddle with braided carbon rails in the clamp was super easy. I tend to run a relatively neutral-to-forward saddle position, and the small upper clamp allows a huge range of saddle placement.

Even better is the after-install adjustability. I’m very picky as to saddle tilt and fore/aft, and I stopped a number of times on rides to adjust the angle and setback of the saddle. The thumbscrew makes incremental adjustment of the saddle tilt very easy.

hand, the upper clamp is very short so as to offer a huge range of front-to-back saddle placement.

I can’t claim to notice any particular stiffness or ride qualities in the Cyrano post that are any different from any other seatpost I’ve used. It just works well — it holds the saddle in place and it’s very user friendly.

My only comments are in regard to the weight, which at 200 grams for the 270x 27.2mm post is competitive but not earth shattering, and the setback. By traditional measurement, the Cyrano clamp is set back by 15mm, but the long lower cradle extends the range to an effective 25mm setback and also offers a wide range of fore/aft placement. But I tend to prefer 0 to 5mm setback seatposts, and Cyrano isn’t offered in this configuration.

That’s all: a little lighter, and a zero setback option, and this would be my post. Despite these small gripes, I think for the vast majority of riders, the Cyrano post is going to be a great option to accommodate saddle rails of every description.